Fighting fives (12/23/06)

The early pattern against Muncie Central continued Friday night. Although, the 2006-07 Patriots put in a good effort to change the result.

For the third straight season Jay County's boys basketball team fell behind big to the Bearcats in the opening minutes. It managed to claw to within three points on two occasions in the opening half, but never seriously threatened in the second of their 59-42 defeat in the battle of teams ranked fifth in their respective classes.

The Class 3A No. 5 Patriots (6-2), who trailed Class 4A No. 5 Muncie Central 16-0 in each of the previous two seasons, found themselves staring at a 15-2 deficit this year.

"That's one of the things that's kind of surprising to a lot of people, but we have not started games well this year," said Central coach Matt Fine. "Our last game we were 0-for-6 on our first six possessions and we really made a concerted effort to get off to a good start tonight with our execution, but maybe more importantly with our intensity."

The Bearcats (6-1) showed Jay County a 1-3-1 half-court trap, much like it saw in Tuesday's loss at Centerville, in the first period. It led to six turnovers as Central senior Tom Freeman, who missed just three shots and racked up a game-high 26 points, scored nine points in his team's opening run.

The only two Patriot points during the stretch came on free throws by Scott "Scooter" Bruggeman, and they did not hit a field goal until Billy Wellman connected on a triple off a Bruggeman assist at the 2:42 mark.

"We've ran (the 1-3-1) this year a lot, but not as much as we did here tonight," said Fine, who was in attendance Tuesday. "Jay County does a great job of running their motion offense and making five, 10, however many passes they need to score. And we didn't want that type of game tonight."

But Wellman's 3-pointer sparked a 10-point Patriot run in which Bruggeman added another assist to Clint Muhlenkamp and then scored himself on a 3-pointer off a Corey Comer pass and a lay-up after a steal.

Back within 15-12, Jay County had a chance to cut into the Bearcats' lead even further as it held the ball for the final shot of the opening period, but Clint Muhlenkamp's pass underneath the basket ended up in the hands of a Central defender. Boyd Hatfield made the Patriots pay at the other end, hitting his only bucket of the game to push his team's lead back to five points.

"We got off to a poor start, and unfortunately I felt like we were a little intimidated and we shouldn't be because we're a pretty good basketball team too," said JCHS coach Craig Teagle, whose team has lost back-to-back games since opening 6-0. "We kind of spotted them that lead, but then I thought we did a great job fighting our way back. At 15-12 though we wanted the last shot and ended up throwing the ball away and they went up 17-12 at the end of the quarter. Against good teams, you can't have those mistakes.

"They fought their hearts out. I thought they gave me 32 minutes of great effort. We just didn't play smart enough tonight, and we ran into a more talented basketball team."

Muhlenkamp got the Patriots back within three again as he scored the first two points of the second quarter. But Central managed to keep its advantage and pushed the lead to six on a Tracy Johnson put-back in the waning moments of the half.

Jay County again thought it had cut the deficit to three points following Johnson's score when Billy Wellman banked home a 3-pointer from well beyond mid-court. But the officials conferred at half-court and the shot was waived off, correctly, as Wellman released it after the buzzer.

"That would have been a huge momentum swing," said Teagle. "But it would have been bigger if we had taken care of the ball a little bit better in the first half. We could have had a real tight ball game."

Bruggeman made a pair of free throws to open the second half, but it was all Central from there. The Bearcats scored eight straight points, four of which came from Chris Kirtz, to move their lead into double digits and were ahead by at least 10 throughout the final period.

"I thought (the waived-off 3-pointer) would give them a little momentum anyway with them maybe being a little mad that it wasn't good," said Fine. "But our kids did a really good job after halftime."

Freeman was outstanding all the way, scoring 18 of his team's 26 first-half points. He missed just one shot before the intermission, hit eight of his nine 2-point attempts and buried three 3-pointers for his game-high total.

He also had three rebounds.

Ben Botts joined Freeman in double digits, hitting for nine of his 11 points in the second half, and dished out four assists. Brandon Jenkins had eight points, five rebounds and five assists.

"Tom has not given us much the last three ball games before tonight, and I've been on him pretty hard this week," said Fine. "Really good players respond to that. He has confidence and he knocks them down."

Bruggeman was the lone Patriot in double figures with 10 points. Half of those came by way of a 5-of-6 effort at the free-throw line, and he also had five assists and two blocks.

Rhett Retter hit three 3-pointers for nine points, and Billy Wellman scored eight. Corey Comer added seven points and five rebounds.

Junior varsity

These Patriots turned in the stirring rally of the night, coming back from a seven-point deficit at the half for a 31-28 victory over Muncie Central.

Jay County (7-1) fell behind 20-13 at the half, but limited the Bearcats to four points in the third quarter to pull within one. Dexter Shreve hit a lay-up to give the Patriots at 25-24 lead with 3:32 to play, and the home team never trailed again.

Kyle Simmons scored all of his four points on free throws in the final 47 seconds to seal the victory.

Shreve carried the scoring load for Jay County, finishing with nearly half of the team's points as he tallied 15. Adam Garringer followed with seven, and Aaron Daniels scored five.

Anthony Mann and Jamel Wolfe paced Muncie Central with eight points apiece.[[In-content Ad]]